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Outlaws All in a Day's Work
Favorite line: "Mr. Neely, there
are four thousand people in this area.
A frightened man rushes into the
Marshal's office, exclaiming that Keenan is really after him.
A stranger comes into Connie's Cafe for a cup of coffee. He wants to know who eats at the Cafe - maybe the Marshal? Connie answers, "sometimes," addressing him as Mr. Keenan. He doesn't react, but she isn't fooled, and the minute he leaves, she rushes to the Marshal's office. But the stranger is watching. Mr. Neely accosts Will in the street - his young daughter has run away in the night with a boy. What is the Marshal going to do about it? Will tells him he help the man find her. Connie gives the description of her customer to Chalk but he tells her it doesn't fit Keenan. Then Chalk surmises that Keenan wouldn't want to go to prison again - he would no doubt hire a gunman to kill the Marshal for him. Connie begs Chalk to trail after Will and watch out for him. This is exactly Chalk's plan. As Will and Neely walk the
streets, the stranger follows behind. But Chalk is behind him and, gun
drawn, tells him not to move anything but his mouth. He denies that Keenan
sent him. When Will reads his papers, he discovers the man is a special
deputy from Guthrie, sent by
the governor to help keep Will alive.
Will finds the runaway Neely girl and her beau. He makes a show of filling out papers for Mr. Neely to press charges. He explains that it will then be a matter of public record and will probably even appear in the newspaper. Mr. Neely doesn't want that. So Will tells them all to sit down and work it out while he goes back to work. He keeps his word by riding out to Winn Squire's farm. Squire's is practically hysterical with fear - every noise, from the trees rustling to the horses stamping in the barn, makes him think Keenan is about to do him in.
Then the town undertaker comes
in. Slim has the reply to Chalk's wire regarding Eddie - there is no special deputy Mann attached to the Guthrie office. Meanwhile, Eddie approaches Will while he is corralling Mrs. Arbush's missing cat. Since Will is going back to check on Wim Squires again, Eddie tells him the best route to take so he can cover him. Will takes off but before Eddie can follow, Chalk knocks him unconscious. When Eddie comes to, he wants to go after Will but Chalk confronts him with the wire. Mann tells him he is a fool - he's not a deputy, he's an assistant Marshal, his name is spelled Mahan, and he's attached to Oklahoma City, not Guthrie. "You sent a telegram to a clerk and you got a clerk's answer back." At Squire's place, Will is
commiserating over the man's fear - he's been hearing noises himself. But he
won't stay to protect him - he needs a night's sleep. "But I've got special
reasons," says Squires, just before he pulls Will's gun from its holster.
"You've got to wait for me," purrs another man, pointing a rifle.
Slim asks Will how he managed to get away. Will shows him Mrs. Arbush's tom cat, safely stored in Will's saddle bag. When Slim tells him he should take a rest the next day, Will says there is too much work to do - among other things, there's Mr. Andros's missing cattle, the broken nose to investigate, and the tom cat to return to Mrs. Arbush.
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